A Spot of a Different Color

By Lesli Kathman

Many of the most striking horse colors involve patches of white hair. The popularity of pinto and appaloosa patterns – in both real and model horses! – comes from a desire to stand out from the crowd, to be a little different. But not all unique markings are white. Here are some of the factors that add color, or add a different color, to the coat.

Blood Marks

Some grey horses have irregular patches that grey at a slower rate than the rest of the coat. Because they often occur on the neck or withers, this type of marking is often referred to as “bloody shoulders”, but the patches can appear anywhere on the body. Blood-marked greys can be so extensively marked that they might be mistaken for a pinto, except that the skin under the white areas of the coat is dark.

The best clue that this horse is a blood-marked grey and not a sabino is the dark skin on her face. If this was a sabino, it would be pink.

Mismarks

Sometimes a portion of the coat will have a gene “turned off”,which causes the area revert back to its original, unmodified color. Particularly striking examples of mismarks are leopard appaloosas with large areas of solid color. Mismarks on grey horses can be mistaken for badger markings when they occur on the face, or for blood marks. Unlike blood marks, a mismarked patch is solid and shows no signs of greying.

This leopard appaloosa has a small mismark on his neck. Most mismarks are small, but in rare cases a horse may have numerous large areas that have reverted back to their original color.

Bend Or Spots

Chestnut and palomino horses sometimes have sooty patches known as Bend Or spots. Most have just one or two small, rounded spots but occasionally a palomino will have these spots throughout their coat. In rare cases, palominos can have large, irregular sooty patches that look quite similar to the blood marks seen on grey horses.

 This Miniature Horse has numerous Bend Or spots on his body and legs.

Corn Spots

For most colors, damage to the skin causes the hairs to grow back white. This is seen in horses with freeze brands. Injuries to roan horses, however, grow back dark.  Most of the time the shape of the dark markings make the cause obvious. The one exception is corn spots, which often appear unnaturally round relative to the direction of the hair growth. It is likely that these are caused by fungal infections.

Ermine Spots

Spots of color on the lower foot are called ermine spots. They occur inside ordinary white markings as well as on the legs of tobianos. Some tobianos have large patches of color rather than spots, though this is less common.

The ermine spots on this Quarter Horse are unusual for their size and number.	Large spots of color like the ones on this Paint mare are rare, but the trait does tend to run in certain families.

Ink Spots

Homozygous tobianos often have small spots of color in the white areas of their pattern. This kind of spotting has many names: ink spots, cat tracks, paw prints. The appearance of the spots can vary from just a few small spots to large areas of dense spotting and roaning. Ink spots tend to cluster around the colored portions of the tobiano pattern as well as around the coronet.

Halos and roan patches are common on tobianos with ink spots.

Belton

This type of spotting gets its name from the traditional term used to describe the coloring of an English Setter. Horses with belton patterning have colored spots spread across the white areas of the coat. Like ink spots on tobianos, the size and number of the spots varies with each horse. What mkes belton spotting different from ink spotting is that it is not limited to tobianos or even to pintos. It is easier to see in patterns with extensive white, but it can be seen on horses with ordinary white markings. Another difference is that belton spotting usually covers the body, including the face (not just the muzzle) and the legs (not just the coronet).

It is not unusual for horses to have small spots of color on their muzzle, but spots over the whole length of the face are typical of belton patterning.

Reversed Markings

Some horses have colored areas that mimic the shape and placement of common white markings on the face or legs. Horses with large reversed markings on their face are referred to as badger-faced. Reversed markings are easiest to see when the legs or face are completely white. When they overlap white markings, they can be identified by the “outline” of the white that is still visible. Although their effect is similar, badger faces and colored socks do not appear to have the same cause. For that reason, a horse might have a reversed marking on the face or a leg, but typically not both.

When the entire head is white, badger markings look like a reversed bald face.  Smaller badger marks look like cutouts in the white pattern.

The colored sock over a stocking has left a ring of white around the left front leg of this Paint Horse. It is rare to find a horse with more than one reversed sock.